Note 81 — Chapter IV · THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE—(continued).

The increase of the crops due to irrigation is most instructive. In the most unproductive Sologne, irrigation has increased the hay crop from two tons per hectare (two and a half acres) to eight tons; in the Vendée, from four tons of bad hay to ten tons of excellent hay. In the Ain, M. Puris, having spent 19,000 francs for irrigating ninety-two and a half hectares (about £2 10s. per acre), obtained an increase of 207 tons of excellent hay. In the south of France, a net increase of over four bushels of wheat per acre is easily obtained by irrigation; while for market gardening the increase was found to attain £30 to £40 per acre. (See H. Sagnier, “Irrigation,” in Barral’s Dictionnaire d’Agriculture, vol. iii., p. 339.) I hardly need mention the striking results obtained lately by irrigation in Egypt and on the dry plateaus of the United States.